SpaceX gets NASA order to send crew to space station

Private company SpaceX got word Friday of an official order from NASA to send a crew to the International Space Station, just the second such order placed.

A previous order was given to Boeing in May. A Houston-based division of the aerospace giant is developing its Crew Space Transportation System under a $4.4 billion contract with NASA. The CTS-100, currently in development, is a small capsule with the limited purpose of getting astronauts to the space station.

SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif., is working to modify its Dragon capsule to carry humans. The capsule already has delivered cargo to the station, but Space X says that it was designed from the beginning to be capable of taking people into orbit as well.

No dates have been announced for either of the crew launches. The first mission is tentatively scheduled for 2017, though the space agency has complained that inadequate Congressional funding for the effort may push back the launch until 2018.

This is the second in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts. Each company is guaranteed at least two flights. NASA has not announced which company will fly the first mission.

"It's really exciting to see SpaceX and Boeing with hardware in flow for their first crew rotation missions," Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement.

"It is important to have at least two healthy and robust capabilities from U.S. companies to deliver crew and critical scientific experiments from American soil to the space station throughout its lifespan."

The contract award was a welcome bit of news for SpaceX, whose Falcon 9 rockets currently are grounded following a June launch failure. The company blamed a faulty strut in an engine, though an investigation and follow-up testing remain ongoing.

NASA has turned over the responsibility of getting people and material to the space station to private enterprise so it could concentrate on missions beyond Earth's orbit. The resupply missions were going well until back-to-back launch failures involving rockets from Space X and Orbital Sciences placed these efforts under greater scrutiny.

The next resupply mission is an Orbital launch scheduled for Dec. 3.

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